We Own the Sky (The Muse Chronicles Book 1)

by Sara Crawford

  Mr. King sings the male solo and the chorus part, and I’m improvising and singing over him. And then I hit the high note. The high C. What? I am an alto. I didn’t even know I could hit a high C. Bianca and the cheerleader didn’t even try for it. I can feel the entire chorus gaping at me, but I’m not looking at them. I am focusing only on Vincent’s hand on my shoulder, picturing his asymmetrical lips forming an alluring smile.

  Mr. King stops playing piano, and there is a moment of incredulous silence.

  “Yeah!” Travis cheers as he starts clapping wildly. Everyone joins in.

  I look at Vincent. He is beaming. I haven’t seen him look this happy since...well, maybe ever. I can feel my cheeks burning.

  “Well…” Mr. King says, looking for the words. “Maybe you should be in the soprano section for the next concert.”

  “Well done, my dear,” Vincent whispers in my ear.

  I look at him straight in the eye.

  Thank you.

  His teeth shine bright as he offers me a real, genuine smile. He turns away and steps back behind the risers as I return to the alto section.

  “I think Baker will be singing the female solo in this song,” Mr. King says, “But don’t worry. There will be a few other solos in the fall concert.” He smiles at Bianca and the cheerleader.

  “Good job, Sylvia!” Bianca says.

  “Travis, do you want to try the male solo?” Mr. King asks. Everyone laughs because Travis is the only male who even bothered raising his hand. There’s a special energy in the room that I only feel at rare moments when Dad is having a particularly magical band practice and I happen to be a witness. Did I do this?

  “Alright, hermano,” Mariela says to Vincent. “It’s my turn now!” I did learn enough Spanish to catch that she called Vincent “brother”. Travis stands and Mariela puts her hand on his shoulder.

  As he sings, I close my eyes and get lost in his Jeff Buckley voice. Vincent gives my hand a gentle squeeze. Mr. King is thrilled to tell Travis he has the solo.

  Mr. King asks us to work on another song, and I shift my focus back to the music. I get distracted as we sing a song in Latin. My voice sounds so good now. I understand now that it’s only because of Vincent so I don’t feel egotistical letting myself enjoy it.

  Vincent stands behind me with his hand on my shoulder while I sing. His touch is unbelievably comforting, like the warmth of an electric blanket on the coldest night of winter. And there’s that feeling again. The feeling of Inspiration, flowing through my veins. It’s a blissful feeling.

  All too soon, the bell rings.

  “Great work today!” Mr. King is enthusiastic.

  “Especially you, Sylvia!” I hear Mariela saying. She’s still standing behind Travis. “Although no one holds a candle to my Travis,” she says as she slaps his ass as if they were on a sports team together. He doesn’t acknowledge her.

  Why doesn’t she show herself to him? I ask Vincent as I put my chorus folder in my book bag, taking my sweet time.

  “That’s not how most of us do things,” Vincent answers me. “She’s excited that you can see us. She never gets to talk to artists.”

  I look over at her. She is beaming at me. I notice that her black dress looks like it’s from the 1950s or 1960s. She has a certain spunk that makes it hard for me not to feel good when I see her.

  I notice Travis and Bianca are walking to lunch together.

  I look back at Vincent.

  Will you come to the studio tonight? I ask him silently. He nods once, smirking in that irresistible way that he does, and he vanishes.

  “Adios, Sylvia!” Mariela exclaims. I snap my head back to her without thinking.

  “What are you looking at?” Cassie asks me.

  “Oh, I thought I heard someone say my name,” I mumble. I’m really going to have to get better at interacting with humans and Muses at the same time if I don’t want people to think that I’m a nutcase. Now that they’re actually talking to me.

  I catch Mr. King looking at me with an odd expression on his face, and for the tiniest fraction of a second I think maybe he knows.

  That’s ridiculous.

  “Bye, Mr. King!” I say to him.

  “Bye, Baker. See you in homeroom!” One of his dreads fell out of his ponytail, I noticed, and he is tying them all back. It makes me smile.

  It feels like a part of me has opened up, and nothing looks or feels the same now. My emotions are on overdrive. I feel so joyful.

  ***

  At lunch, Bianca and Travis hold hands, and Cassie pushes around food with a fork as Ryan tells her a joke.

  I pull out my phone and text Bianca.

  What happened with you two?

  She casually texts me back without letting anyone know that’s what she’s doing.

  After you left, we kissed!

  I smile at my phone. Good for Bianca.

  “So, we were thinking,” Travis suddenly says. “Sylvia, do you want to jam with us? On the drums?”

  Ryan nods in agreement.

  “What about Derek?” I ask.

  “We want to see what you sound like,” Ryan said. “Plus, you know. Hispanic singer, Asian bass player, chick drummer. It’d be pretty awesome. We could change our name to The Tokens.”

  I roll my eyes.

  “But seriously,” Travis says. “Do you want to?”

  “You totally should!” Bianca exclaims.

  “Sure,” I say. “Can we do it at my house? My kit is already there and I have a PA and everything. Well, my dad does.”

  “Of course,” Travis says.

  I wonder if Vincent will come and help me play drums with them. I imagine myself in The Red Lampposts, and I am suddenly ecstatic. I laugh for no reason. Bianca and Cassie ask me what’s so funny. I can’t explain my intense joy. It’s as if all my emotions have been amplified.

  When lunch ends, we all get up to walk to our next class. We pass by a group of obnoxious football players, and one of them stops.

  “Nice girl pants, Jones,” he jokes to Travis. “You’re so gay.”

  The football players’ friends laugh. As quickly as I became ecstatic earlier, anger rushes over me, taking over.

  “What did you say?” I ask him.

  “I said Travis looks like he’s wearing girl pants,” the football player says to me, getting closer. He’s a lot taller than me and much bulkier, but I don’t back away from him.

  I suddenly feel so much hatred for this guy.

  “That’s really mature,” I say. “Travis happens to be an extremely talented musician, which is more than I can say for you and your horrible team.”

  “Are you really going to let this druggie whore fight your battles?” the football player asks, looking at Travis. Before I even know what I’m doing, I’m lunging towards him with my hands balled into fists. I punch him really hard in the face. He makes a loud groaning noise.

  “I’m not a druggie. Or a whore,” I say through clenched teeth.

  The football player lifts his arm as if to hit me. Ryan comes out of nowhere and gets in front of him.

  “Hey, man, Tommy, chill out,” Ryan says. Of course, Ryan would know this creep.

  “Sylvia! Tommy! To the principal’s office!” a nearby teacher yells. I can’t even look up to see who it is, I am so angry. I look over at Travis, who looks embarrassed, staring at the floor.

  What is wrong with me? My emotions are all over the place, even more so than they ever have been before. I never would have tried to punch a football player. To go from giddy elation to boiling rage in such a short amount of time? Maybe I should be taking my medication.

  I make my way to Principal Jenkins’s office beside Tommy and the teacher who told us to go. I don’t even recognize this teacher, and yet, somehow, she knew my name.

  “I can’t believe you’re friends with this homo,” Tommy mumbles to me.

  “I can’t believe you’re so ignorant and homophobic,” I hiss back at him.

  “
That’s such a gay thing to say,” he says.

  “Are you capable of making a logical statement!?” I am fuming.

  “Knock it off!” the teacher yells at us.

  As we make our way into his office, Principal Jenkins looks almost smug.

  “Sylvia Baker,” he says. “I might have known.”

  TEN

  Jamming

  My whole stunt with Tommy in the cafeteria on Monday landed me in-school suspension for the rest of the day on Monday and three days after that, which meant that I didn’t get to go to any of my classes Tuesday, Wednesday, or yesterday. I had to sit in this little cubicle in a room with Coach Hubert and a few other kids—including Tommy—for three days. I didn’t get to go to chorus or Greek mythology or anything. Apart from the times Vincent showed up to sing me new melodies, it was miserable.

  To make things worse, Principal Jenkins called my dad. Once I explained my side of the story, though, he understood. (He’s never liked Principal Jenkins, which helped my case.) He did tell me, though, that I’m going to have to make an appointment with Laura next week.

  It’s Friday, and I finally got to return to my normal routine today. Plus, tonight is my sort of “audition” for The Posts. I am both nervous and excited.

  It’s the end of Greek mythology class, and I’m debating whether or not to talk to Ms. Bolton about Vincent. How would I start the conversation, though? “Hey, yeah, so I’m seeing Muses. Is this normal?” That’s a sure way to get permanently committed.

  We’ve been talking about Chapter Three of Edith Hamilton’s book, “How the World and Mankind Were Created.” There hasn’t been any mention of the Muses this class so any question that I have about them would probably seem a little out of place.

  The bell rings. I take my time putting all my books back inside of my bag, deciding whether or not to bring up the Muse subject.

  “I’m giving Bianca a ride home,” Travis says as we walk out of class. “You want me to take you, too?”

  “That’s alright,” I say. “I don’t mind riding the bus.”

  “You and your bus,” he says with a laugh. “Well, I’m glad you’re back to class. Sorry you got in so much trouble for punching that douchebag.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I say. “I don’t really know what came over me.”

  “I’ll see you tonight? Jam session?” he asks with a grin.

  I nod. “Be there at 7:00!”

  He smiles and walks off, leaving me in the Greek Mythology classroom. Ms. Bolton is straightening out papers on her desk. I hesitantly walk up to her.

  “Ms. Bolton,” I say. “I have a question.”

  “Sure,” she says. “Is it about today’s lecture? Or what you missed when you were out?”

  “No, I have more of a general question.”

  “Alright.” She sits down behind her desk. I remember that her arms are covered in tattoos under her long-sleeved blouse, and somehow this makes me feel better.

  “So…I was thinking about the Muses…” I am not really sure where to begin or how to sound sane. Then again, if everything Vincent said is true, there’s a chance she knows about it. She did have a flickering person—I mean, a Muse—after all, didn’t she? But is she just like every other artist who doesn’t know about the Muses? But she teaches Greek mythology.

  “Yes?” she urges me on, looking up at me, her green eyes widening.

  “Well, my…friend…was telling me about this theory that the Muses still exist? Do you think that’s a metaphor? Um, do you think it’s possible? I mean…” My voice trails off. This is coming out a lot worse than I imagined.

  She sits for a long moment in silence, her pencil pressed to her lips.

  “I think…” she pauses. “I think there are a lot of Muses out there.” She looks up at me with a smile. I’m not sure what she means by this, but she says it in a tone that suggests that this is all she’s going to say on the topic so I don’t push it any further.

  “I think…I’d like to do my mid-term paper on this…the Muses, I mean…” I stammer.

  “Great!” she says with a huge smile. “Oh, and Sylvia. Try not to get in trouble again. We missed you in class.” She gives me a little wink.

  “Yeah,” is all I can think to say.

  Well, this wasn’t exactly the conversation I was hoping for, but then I don’t really know what I was expecting. Was I expecting her to say she knew all about Vincent and Mariela and the whole thing? And then we could just have a huge party with all the people that only we can see?

  I wish I could tell her I saw her band at Smith’s Olde Bar. I wish I could tell Mr. King that I was there, too. I wish I could talk to them like my dad’s friends and bandmates instead of teachers. Instead, I just give her a little nod and walk out of the classroom.

  ***

  We are all in my dad’s studio: me on Charlie, Travis with his Fender guitar strapped to him, and Ryan with his Ibanez bass. They both have really nice instruments. I am a little nervous. There is an uneasy energy. Is Vincent going to show up? Is Mariela?

  “Do you want to start with ‘Talking’?” Travis asks me. “That’s the one we jammed on a little bit last time.”

  I guess he doesn’t understand how I have completely memorized all the songs on his demo and a few of the live songs they have up on their website. I don’t want to admit to being such an obsessive nerd so I just nod.

  “Yeah, I know that one,” I say.

  “Great,” he says. “Do you know it well enough to count us off, or should I?”

  “I can do it,” I say. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. “One, two, three, four!”

  We launch into the upbeat song, and I allow the energy to flow through my hands, into the sticks, onto the snare and the high-hat cymbal—into my foot that pounds the bass drum. It’s a simple beat. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. I’m doing exactly what the drummer did on the recording, but I’m just warming up.

  Ryan comes over towards me, and he is grooving with me on his bass. He looks at me with an almost surprised expression on his face, like he wasn’t expecting me to be good.

  I quiet down for the verse, giving them a simple beat. Travis sings the words I have practically memorized. I can hear harmonies in my head, but I am afraid to sing without Vincent. I focus all my energy on Charlie instead. I never feel as free, as liberated, as I do when I’m sitting at the kit.

  When we move into the chorus, I throw in an impressive and somewhat complicated drum fill I’ve been working on for a while. I’ve practiced this one with their demo many times, but I was still a little nervous about it. I execute it flawlessly. Ryan beams at me as he plays the bass.

  I have never really liked Ryan all that much, but now that we are playing music together, it’s like we are finally speaking the same language. I grin at him as we both take the volume way down for the bridge. Travis looks at us, and then he starts singing a low melody that crescendos and builds and builds…all three of us look at each other, and then we all explode back into the chorus. Travis sings his heart out and strums chords on his guitar with such power, Ryan plucks out his simple but catchy bass line, and I try out another drum fill that’s not as showy, but still sounds cool. I’m taking the drum part from the demo and amplifying it.

  When we finish the song, there is the shortest moment of silence before we all erupt into smiles and enthusiastic cheers.

  “That was so sweet!” Travis exclaims.

  “Damn, you’re the best girl drummer I’ve heard in a while!” Ryan says. I resist the urge to roll my eyes. (Of course, he had to bring up the fact that I’m a “girl drummer” and not just a “drummer”.) There is an amazing energy in the room now so I try to focus on that instead.

  We play the other two songs from the demo. (I hope Travis doesn’t see me tear up during “April.”) And then we play some of their other songs. Some of them I know, some of them I don’t. I catch on pretty quickly, though, on the new ones. It takes me a minute to figure ou
t a beat that will really compliment every song, but once I get it, they give me huge grins.

  Jamming out with my dad and Leo and Jake has never felt like this. It always felt like I was kind of an outsider during those jam sessions. Leo and Jake and Dad always look at each other and seem to interact without speaking. Sometimes I can figure out what they are saying to each other, and sometimes I can’t.

  But with Ryan and Travis, it feels like I am just as important to the music pouring out of all of us as they are. The whole jam session fills me with such adrenaline, and I want to keep playing all night.

  “Damn,” Ryan says abruptly. “It’s already 11:00! We’ve been playing for four hours.”

  “You guys probably want to call it quits,” I say.

  “Where’s your dad?” Travis asks as he turns off his amp.

  “Working at Smith’s.”

  “That is so cool that he works there,” Ryan says. Travis shoots him a look that I can’t quite read.

  “Yeah,” I say ignoring this exchange. “There are a lot of cool bands that play there.”

  “It was so much fun playing with you,” Travis says, beaming. I can tell he is feeling just as great as I am.

  “Totally!” Ryan exclaims. “We need to talk to Derek, though.”

  “Assuming you want to be in the band?” Travis asks as he takes his guitar off and puts it back in his case. The mention of Derek makes me pause. I really do want to be in the band. Playing with them makes me feel amazing.

  “I really do,” I blurt out before I can stop myself. “But what about Derek? Are you guys going to kick him out of the band?”

  “I don’t know,” Ryan says. “I think you’re a way better drummer than he is. Plus, more people might come to our shows if we have a hot chick drummer.” I frown. Every time I think I am starting to like Ryan, he starts talking and ruins it.